Not all backlinks are created equally. Some are great, others do more bad than good.
This outlook has put âquality backlinksâ in the dead-center of conversations.
Not that people donât look for and get poor quality backlinks anymore. They STILL do. However, quality has become quite a focal point in this SEO department as of late.
In this context, two very big things will happen this year and beyond:
- More people will do away from poor quality backlinks. Since itâs becoming more evident that bad link associations hurt PR in a big way.
- External backlinks will become less relevant to a point that they wonât even matter much.
Now, I might receive some flak for the second point, but let me explainâŚ
External Link Building is Less Relevant Now
Yes, backlink is one of the two most important SEO factors (content being the other one).
However, itâs not uncommon to find websites ranking higher on SERP even with fewer backlinks compared to other results in the lower end.
For example, I Googled âbest recipe for veganâ. The following two results popped in first and third result pages.
A quick backlink analysis of these 2 URLs came up with thisâŚ
The result on the first page has a fewer number of backlinks (and less Domain Rating) and yet it ranked higher vs. the other one.
You will find countless such examples.
Indeed, this isnât concretely conclusive to anything, after all, there are over 200 search ranking factors that come into play here.
Yet, in many ways, it shows backlinks are less important today than how things were a few years back.
UXO is the New SEO
Also, a backlink isnât a direct UX-centric factor.
With Rankbrain becoming more prevalent and now the release of Google BERT, the search engine is chasing factors like Click-Through Rate, Time on Site, Dwell Time, and Bounce Rate more than others, which are indicators of the experience of the users.
So, itâs not hard to assume that Google may be mellowing down with traditional ranking factors such as external backlinks that can easily be manipulated.
This isnât to naively say that backlinks are âreallyâ dead or doesnât matter anymore. BUT, link building definitely isnât something what it used to be.
And as search engines become more humane in their ranking in the coming months and years, backlinks would become very less relevant. While this has been a hushed talk for a couple of years now, 2020-2025 might just be the span that it actually starts to pan out in reality.
Recommended Read: A Complete List of Off-Page SEO Techniques
P.S. Sorry for the clickbait title. But I am sure the basic arguments here made sense. đ
P.S.S. Donât stop guest blogging though. Might not for backlinks, BUT itâs extremely helpful for branding.
Here are some additional reads:
â Google: Links Are Not The Most Important SEO Factor
â Googleâs John Mueller Explains How Sites Without Backlinks Are Discovered
â Google: Links From Wikipedia Does Nothing For Your Site and Has No SEO Value
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